BELLEVUE, Wash. — The suspect in a Bellevue murder didn't show up in court today, but we still have new details about the killing at a local Burger King.
In newly released court documents, police describe a murderous sneak attack.
Detectives say the suspect is a 38-year old transient, Steven O. Padilla. In the probable cause document, they wrote that Padilla and thevictim were inside the Burger King newer 148th NE and NE 24th Street.
Detectives say Padilla emerged from a restroom, drew a knife from his right jacket pocket, then approached 65-year old Jose Arias from behind and stabbed him at least twice in the upper torso. Arias, police say, might have been asleep.
Arias stumbled outside the restaurant and into the parking lot where he collapsed and died.
“Is he breathing?” eyewitness Sokun Hem says he was asked. “I said I don't know, let's ask him. And then he just moved his head like this.”
Bellevue police caught Padilla a mile and a half away. Today they told us his alleged victim was also a transient, but that the two men were not sitting together in the restaurant. Detectives are still searching for a motive or any connection between.
Padilla was supposed to appear in the King County Jail courtroom today, but he refused to come down from his jail cell, so the judge ordered him held without bail.
A bail hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.
KIRO
